Angela Carella: Court order, dispatch data latest in fire feud

Updated 10:34 pm, Tuesday, April 2, 2013

A judge has ordered three volunteer fire companies that sued the city to block a merger with the Stamford Fire Department to obey directives issued by the SFD chief.

Judge Douglas Mintz ruled March 28 in state Superior Court in Stamford that, while the volunteers' suit and a counterclaim filed by the city are pending, the Turn of River, Springdale and Long Ridge companies must:

Abide by the federal "two in, two out" rule that responses include enough firefighters for two to enter a building while two remain outside to aid them.

Notify the dispatcher when responding with fewer than four firefighters so a backup unit can be sent.

Include at least one firefighter with a valid state emergency medical responder certificate when fielding medical calls.

Allow a career fire officer to command a scene in a volunteer district unless or until a volunteer officer shows up.

Track which volunteers ride which apparatus on their shifts, and whether they respond to incidents from a firehouse or elsewhere.

Provide SFD Chief Antonio Conte with the names of the active volunteers in each company and the status of their training, certification and medical fitness.

Allow a city fire marshal to respond to incidents in volunteer districts and work with them to determine the origin of fires. A city marshal must sign off on the reports of volunteer marshals.

It is the latest episode in a feud that dates to the early 1990s, when a study showed that volunteers could no longer adequately cover the neighborhoods north of Bull's Head.

As volunteer companies came to rely more on taxpayer money and city firefighters, a power struggle resulted, with volunteer chiefs trying to retain command of their districts. Several times the feud has landed in court.

It happened again Jan. 28, when Turn of River, Springdale and Long Ridge filed a suit alleging that a change to the City Charter, approved by a significant majority of Stamford voters in November, is illegal. Volunteers say the change -- allowing a single fire department rather than one career and five volunteer companies -- violates a state law that protects their autonomy.

The city countersued March 13, alleging that Turn of River, Springdale and Long Ridge volunteers have refused to recognize the charter change and Conte's authority and safety directives.

But the discord goes beyond the courtroom.

SFD data compiled from 911 dispatch logs shows that Turn of River and Springdale volunteers do not respond to most calls in their districts, leaving them to career firefighters.

According to the data, there were 321 incidents in the Turn of River fire district between Jan. 1 and March 18, but volunteers responded to only 147. That's about 46 percent.

More than half of the total number of Turn of River incidents, 52 percent, were requests for medical help. Turn of River had a lower response rate for those, according to the data. Of the 166 medical calls, volunteers responded to 68, or 41 percent.

In the Springdale fire district, the rate of response from volunteers was worse, the data showed. There were 153 calls for service in that period, but Springdale volunteers responded to 23, or 15 percent.

Of the total 153 incidents in the Springdale district, 130, or 85 percent, were medical calls, but Springdale volunteers responded to none, the data showed.

The volunteer chiefs said the SFD data is wrong.

Springdale Chief Shawn Fahan said his volunteers responded to 148 calls, not 23 of the 154 total that the SFD claims.

"The city is only telling you who went to the scene. They are not telling you who went to cover the station in case another call comes in. We get credit for that," Fahan said.

When Springdale Engine 7, staffed by career firefighters, responds to a call about, say, a hockey player with a sprained ankle at Twin Rinks, volunteers "don't sign on air. We just go to the firehouse to provide coverage while Engine 7 is out," Fahan said. "Dispatch has no way of knowing if one volunteer or 10 volunteers responded. The career firefighters know we're there. It just doesn't get reported downtown."

That's because volunteers "do not let us know when they are covering the station," said SFD Lt. David Davis, a communications supervisor in the dispatch center. "We send out calls to the Springdale fire station and to the volunteer pagers. It's up to them to respond. If they choose to stay in the station, they are not letting me know. If they are there after the first call and another call comes in, they should respond to the second call. But most of the time they don't."

Turn of River volunteer Chief Frank Jacobellis said volunteers respond from wherever they are, "but because they are not sitting in the station, the truck staffed by paid firefighters is going out ahead of them."

By the time volunteers get to the station the call may be canceled or already handled.

"There's a lot of times when that happens. The city does not have that information. I would give it to them, but they never asked me how many times a volunteer responded to the station but did not get out the door," Jacobellis said.

He thinks the Turn of River volunteer response rate is a lot better than the 46 percent the SFD claims, Jacobellis said. In December, Turn of River tried to staff the station 24 hours a day, "but it got too difficult for volunteers to give up so much of their personal time," he said.

"Maybe someone is not sitting in the station 24 hours a day, and many times when there is someone there, he may not have a driver, so he has to wait before he can respond," Jacobellis said. "That's the nature of a volunteer department."

That's the problem, city officials have said since the 1991-95 administration of Mayor Stanley Esposito, who ordered the fire study. It's why 66 percent of voters in November changed the City Charter to unify fire service.

Belltown and Glenbrook volunteers are figuring out the charter change with the city. Turn of River and Springdale filed the lawsuit to contest it along with Long Ridge, a volunteer company with its own union of city-paid drivers.

Long Ridge volunteers appear to be digging in for a fight. According to the March 4 minutes of the monthly Long Ridge business meeting, Chief Stuart Teitelbaum proposed changing a bylaw.

The Long Ridge charter now states that, if the company were to dissolve, remaining assets would go to whatever organization would then provide fire protection in the district. In place of that bylaw Teitelbaum proposed that assets be transferred to a not-for-profit organization selected by the Long Ridge board of trustees, with the advice of the chief.

Long Ridge has two fire stations and two or three homes. Usually the chief and his family live in one and firefighters live rent-free in apartments in another. Long Ridge also earns about $80,000 a year in rent from a cell-phone tower it allowed to be built on its land. This fiscal year Long Ridge is projected to receive $1.4 million from taxpayers.